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Balancing Acts: Intending Good And Foreseeing Harm - The Principle Of Double Effect In The Law Of Negligence, Edward C. Lyons
Balancing Acts: Intending Good And Foreseeing Harm - The Principle Of Double Effect In The Law Of Negligence, Edward C. Lyons
Edward C. Lyons
In this article, responding to assertions that the principle of double effect has no place in legal analysis, I explore the overlap between double effect and negligence analysis. In both, questions of culpability arise in situations where a person acts with no intent to cause harm but where reasonable foreseeability of unintended harm exists. Under both analyses, the determination of whether such conduct is permissible involves a reasonability test that balances that foreseeable harm against the good intended by the actor's conduct. In both, absent a finding that the foreseeable harm is unreasonable in light of that intended good, no …